Reviews for Faro's Daughter

The average rating for Faro's Daughter based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-02-18 00:00:00 Robin Peace Flushed with success from my recent reread of Venetia, I cast caution to the wind and decided to take on another Georgette Heyer Regency novel. I should have known I wasn't mentally up for another contrived plot yet. Even Heyer's witty writing didn't save this one for me. Deborah Grantham is a 25 year old with decent parentage, but gambling runs in the family and between one thing and another, she's ended up as a faro dealer at a London gambling house run by her aunt. She's beautiful enough that she's attracted some attention from gentlemen who frequent the gambling house. Mostly it's the wrong sort of attention, but there's Lord Adrian, the 20 year old heir to the Mablethorpe title who has fallen head over heels for her and wants to marry her. His mother and uncle want to squash this inappropriate romance, and they have two months to do it before he turns 21 and gets control of his fortune. So Adrian's uncle, Max Ravenscar, tracks Deborah down and decides the best way to handle her is to offer to pay her money - a lot of money - to send Adrian packing. Deb and her aunt are in desperate need of money, but Deb finds Max's offer so vastly insulting (WHY) that she not only turns down the money, she declares that she'll wed Adrian just to spite Max, even though she actually has absolutely no intention of marrying young Adrian. And so begins a battle royale between this obstinate couple, and of course we all know where it's going from there, but the fun is in the journey. Except it just wasn't that much fun for me. Look, I get that Regencies aren't exactly the poster child for plausibility. When you look up the word "contrived," there's a picture of a Regency romance there, or should be anyway. And I'll confess that when I like the main couple and the plotline, I'll do contrived plots with the best of them (like Loretta Chase's Knave's Wager, one of my guilty pleasures). So what it comes down to is that I didn't like or care for the characters or their choices enough to really make this book a winner for me. Deb is basically an intelligent, kindhearted, cultured person, but being around Max brings out the worst in her. Her decision-making process around him is knee-jerk and irrational, and I just don't do irrational. Max ... well, he's kind of a jerk even at the best of times, though he does care about his family. And they both have a sense of humor, which saves the story from going completely off the rails. The secondary characters didn't help me out a lot here: Deb's aunt is one of those extravagant spendthrift creatures that I dislike so much in fiction (you see her counterpart in False Colours, where she annoyed me even more). Adrian, though he has potential, is young and foolish; Deb's brother mostly grovels; and so on. But mostly this story revolves around the Big Feud between Max and Deb. So if you love this kind of battle of the sexes plotline, complete with farcical events like a kidnapping, a cultured woman dressing up like a tart and acting low class to embarrass the guy and his family, gambling away of fortunes, etc., this might be a really great read for you.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-06-09 00:00:00 Emmanuel Gutierrez Scrumptious. I can't type it here, the Spoiler Stasi would waterboard me, but Z.O.M.G. this entire ending is the outside of enough! I pity the fool who doesn't indulge in the occasional Heyer. A diet of them would be akin to steamed pudding for breakfast, Queen of Puddings for lunch, and a Pavlova for dinner, but damme how they are like vintage champagne served with an exquisite entremet.